Prompt Post 1

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At least one of the characters in your prompt must have been in Captain America: The First Avenger or Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

As of May 3, 2014, the spoiler policy is no longer in effect.

Update, April 22, 2014:
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Fill: And I Am Always with You, Part 17

[lauralot]

It strikes the Soldier that searching full names rather than individual components may be advantageous, and that is how he discovers Wikipedia.

When the entry for James Buchanan Barnes loads, the Soldier glances through the images before reading the text. The visuals in this exhibit have sparked more flashes of memories than the text, so the same may hold true here. But he has already seen every picture on the page displayed in the Smithsonian, save for two: a color photograph of a gravestone, and a black and white photo of a woman holding an infant. The Soldier stares at the second image for a full minute, waiting to understand its significance, before he gives up and glances at the caption. It's Barnes's mother. He reviews it again with that in mind and for all he remembers, he may as well be staring at a wall.

He reads the full entry and it is like reading an especially detailed mission briefing. He reads Steve's article and it contains the same misinformation that Barnes fell alone and that Steve was not taken with him. It says that Steve was asthmatic before the serum and the Soldier remembers a small body struggling for air, eyes dimming. He feels a rush of something—is this how he would feel if a handler were threatened?—and under the jacket sleeve pulled up to conceal it, his metal hand nearly shatters the phone.

Is this a memory? There's no logic in responding this way if Steve's body is no longer asthmatic. Why is it that remembering and malfunctioning seem to run in tandem?

Steve's article is much longer than Barnes's. It directs to many other articles, such as one specifically devoted to the serum, which the Soldier also reads. He reads the history of WWII, the entry on the Howling Commandos, the article on HYDRA, and others, before returning to Steve's page. There is an entire section on Captain America in Popular Culture, whatever Popular Culture is. There are apparently movies about Steve's life. There was, during the War, a comic about Captain America, one bound like a book rather than displayed on a news page, as the Soldier thinks he remembers something called Little Orphan Annie being distributed. Barnes is portrayed in the comic as well, but he seems incongruously young and his clothing is far from regulation.

He hears a child giggle more than he remembers it. Ooh, Bucky, you're so tall! He doesn't know the source of the memory, but he doesn't know the source of most of the flashes he's experiencing.

Images. The only rhyme or reason he can isolate to what triggers the recollections is that they're provoked by looking at things. James Buchanan Barnes lived in Brooklyn for over two decades. If there is any place to find imagery that could make the Soldier remember things Barnes would know, he thinks it would be Brooklyn. Or battlefields overseas, but without HYDRA's resources, Brooklyn is more accessible.

He locates the GPS function on the phone, memorizes the route. The Soldier takes one last glance at the uniforms on display. There should be a mannequin in the center in Steve's uniform, the one he wore on the helicarrier, but instead there is a blank space. As if Steve had come here and taken it, but the Soldier thinks without knowing why that Steve wouldn't commandeer another's property unless there was no other recourse. The thought makes him glance at the phone he holds and he deposits it back into the room full of stalls before he leaves the Smithsonian. The phone is a potential way to be tracked if he keeps it with him, anyway.

The Soldier first intended to walk to Brooklyn—his shoulder has stopped throbbing when he takes steps—but it is three days on foot and only four hours by car. He has no vehicle, but he has a memory, a knowledge that if one moves along the side of the road with their hand extended out a certain way, it means that person is in need of transport.

After half an hour of traveling that way, long enough to reach the interstate, he is beginning to think the memory is corrupted. His arm itches, losing circulation, and there are sensations in his throat and stomach he can't recall feeling before. His body is heavy, as if he is carrying excess weight. Perhaps he is programmed to break down if he remains away from HYDRA for extended periods. It seems likely and when a semi-trailer truck pulls to the shoulder of the interstate, stopping just before it reaches him, he wonders if they have come to collect him before he shuts down entirely.

"Need a lift?" the driver asks.

The Soldier does not know his face. Not that HYDRA let him remember faces. He knows over a thousand processes to kill a man and if it becomes necessary, he can think of several methods to utilize the vehicle itself as a weapon.

"Brooklyn?" the Soldier asks. None of the video footage of Barnes at the Smithsonian contained audio. He wonders what Barnes sounded like. Like the Soldier, or similar yet wrong, the way their faces match but one is full of life and the other empty?

The man is not going to Brooklyn, but he is headed close enough. The Soldier moves into the passenger seat and though his hand stays in his pocket, he can have the knife ready in under a second.

"You see that shit at the Potomac?" the driver asks.

The Soldier nods.

"Fucking mess, isn't it?"

If he asks what fucking means, the Soldier thinks he will become conspicuous. So he doesn't react.

"So what's in Brooklyn?"

"A man." He nearly leaves it there, busy calculating the best places to stab should the driver prove hostile without compromising his own bodily integrity, but he feels eyes on him and thinks that must not be an answer a person would give. "A. Uh. A friend. I need to see a friend."

The Soldier can't read the look he is given. "Ah," is all the driver says. There is a pause. "Mind if I turn on the radio?"

No one has ever asked if the Soldier minds something before. He has no idea if he minds and makes a sound in reply that signifies nothing. Provide ambivalent data and it will be read to the interpreter's bias. The radio is switched on.

It is dark when they part ways, with few cars on the road. The Soldier wonders when he exits if it would be best to eliminate the driver, safest, but to terminate without an order seems

[I am not this person]

faulty, wrong. The thought of killing someone with an order is also beginning to seem wrong, but that is all the Soldier has ever known and to change that constant makes him dizzy, so he stops thinking of it. He begins to walk in the dark and the sun is rising when he enters New York. It is daylight by the time he reaches Eighth Avenue in Brooklyn, when the sight of the church stops him.

It is called St. Saviour, and while he has no memory of it, the building looks as though it may have existed when Barnes and Steve lived in Brooklyn. Moreover, it is on Eighth, which the Internet has told him is where Steve grew up, and it is Catholic, which the Internet has told him is Steve's religious affiliation. He steps inside.

There is a service

[Mass?]

underway in the sanctuary, and he stands in the entryway, observing. The ceremony is in English, with the priest facing the parishioners, and something in him says it should be Latin, says the man should face the altar, says that there should be veils on the women. Maybe this is not a Catholic church after all. Or maybe his thoughts are faulty.

The Soldier waits until nearly everyone has filed out before he steps into the sanctuary itself. There are some people lingering behind, kneeling, with their hands in a configuration that he thinks signifies prayer. He wonders if James Buchanan Barnes ever prayed. He wonders if machines can pray, and if anything would listen if they did.

The image of the building itself stores no memory, so he stands before the statues. There is one of a veiled woman standing in an alcove, her hands pressed together before her chest. Her eyes are downcast. By her foot is the head of a snake, and she crushes its neck beneath her heel.

He thinks he is meant to kneel or bow before he goes, but he also thinks that applies to people, not to weapons.

Re: Fill: And I Am Always with You, Part 17

[(Anonymous)]

I love the pre Vatican 2 details!